Is it safe to say that after the second punic war the roman republic never fought an equal or greater enemy again?

is it safe to say that after the second punic war the roman republic never fought an equal or greater enemy again?

Sure they did. You had all those civil wars.

i mean external

To be honest, even the Second Punic war wasn't with an "equal or greater (external) enemy". You probably didn't have one of those since the war with Pyrrhus.

There are the huns, and muslim empires.

That was long, long after the Republic was gone.

Persians.

Couldn't conquer the Parthians, so them.

The Parthians absolutely btfo’d Crassus and Antony (although in both cases a large reason why was because Crassus and Antony were autistic).

Sassanids and to a much lesser extent the Parthians.

The Cimbri and Teutones were arguably the last existential threat to the Romans, besides the Romans themselves. The Latin Socii are a close second. The Greeks were not a threat whatsoever.

user, the Parthians literally never stopped being an equal adversary to Rome, both the Republic or Empire, any gains made against them were soon reversed, even the Byzantines never managed to truly win.

Also Romans had a hard time against against Phillip and Mithriades, Macedon was still an emerging power and if the Romans didn't have absolute geniuses and exceptional soldiers, they wouldn't have gotten across the Aegean.

Lots of people managed to win a single victory against Rome. The battle of Faesulae cost the Republic a greater percentage of its overall strength in 225 B.C. than Carrhae did in 53. Are we going to say that the Cisalpine Gauls are a stronger force than the Republic on the basis of that?

>Parthians
In no way Romes equal. They won on their own turf, and were never an existential threat to Rome in any capacity whatsoever. Rome sacked their capital more than once. Could not sustain casualties the way both Rome and Carthage could.

>the Parthians literally never stopped being an equal adversary to Rome
In what capacity?

>one of the few fronts in which a consul died in battle
>first front in which an emperor died in battle
>unable to keep any gains whatsoever, distance and resources were never enough to actually assert control over the mesopotamian basin
>centuries-long cold-war with incessant raiding and turning into sporadic meat grinders with a relatively equal win/loss ratio for both sides
>Parthians and then Sassanids moving troops around automatically forcing Rome to strain the efforts against Germanic tribes

That doesn't make them an existential threat. The Parthians never had the desire nor the capacity to push all the way into the Roman heartland. Armenia, Syria and Judea were its largest targets because they desired to plunder , not to conquer. Hell, even Chosroes didn't desire to keep Antioch, he plundered and skedaddled back to Ctesiphon

>Parthians and then Sassanids
Two completely different entities. Why are you using a "then" so care free as if one validates the other? That's like me saying the Assyrians and then the Babylonians with the implication they were pretty much the same state.

>Ctesiphon
Pro-tip

That might have been their capital but it wasn't their heartland either. It was strategically irrelevant.

>That doesn't make them an existential threat. The Parthians never had the desire nor the capacity to push all the way into the Roman heartland.

It does them an equal enemy since Romans were in no way capable of taking them out for good even after reaching Babylon.

And they were an existential threat in the sense that Romans were perpetually stuck guarding that border with substantial amount of resources that could have been used to defend the Danube and Rhine in the most dire times but weren't, Just because they never commited to a real conquest against Rome doesn't mean they weren't serious shit, and Rome treated them as such.

The sassanids

This is a manner of semantics then. When I hear "existential threat" I think "serious chance of destroying the empire by their own initiative", not "They demanded lots of resources that distracted them from other things". We might as well say the Macedonians were an existential threat during the 2nd Punic War.

I'm not disputing the Sassanids or the Parthians as not being a big threat, just not capable of destroying the Romans (maybe not until the last wars of the 600's admittedly)

>I think "serious chance of destroying the empire by their own initiative", not "They demanded lots of resources that distracted them from other things"


that's what i'm getting at, the Romans never relaxed because they themselves considered the Parthians would have kicked them out of the region if they weren't perpetually keeping a considerable military presence, the Sassanids and Parthians never stopped prodding, raiding nd skirmishing and were capable of matching the Romans in pitched battles with similar numbers as well, something no other enemy did.

just because neither of these empires saw it worth it to start a full total war against eachother and wipe eachother out doesn't mean they weren't existential threats for eachother. Think of the US vs the USSR.

>It does them an equal enemy since Romans were in no way capable of taking them out for good even after reaching Babylon.

They were perfectly capable and every single time Rome gave a shit they stomped all over the Parthians. The thing was that it wasn't worth it to get bogged down in some eastern desert and mountain cesspit just so you can then rule said cesspit and it's constant rebellions and to top it all off border the fucking Indians. In the same way the Germans weren't worth and weren't annexed when they eventually got raped. But to answer why they didn't would be long ass post detailing Roman society and both specific and general attitudes regarding continued expansion as well as specific historical events and persons.

And I really don't feel like doing that.

> doesn't mean they weren't serious shit
No one is suggesting they were a bunch of retarded fuck ups, you are reading "not equal to Rome" as "retarded unserious fuckups", Parthians had their merits and are a worthwhile political entity to both study and praise but not an equal to Rome.

How could the republic have been saved?

Sulla kills Caesar

>Two completely different entities

literally just a different dynasty taking the reins of pointlessly similar entity.

but killing nobles is what lead to its fall

The US and USSR were threats because they had INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILES

You need to create a notion of institutional loyalty to "Rome" itself rather than to your particular patron senator or whomever. Ideally before the Marian reforms, but at the very least before things wildly spin out of control into the endemic civil wars that happened whenever their legion commanders decided to play kingmaker.

>Marcus Aurelius kills Commodus
ftfy

>I don't know what the word "republic" means because my IQ hovers at around room temperature.

and Romans and Parthians had Cataphracts and rape. Same thing, really.

>Think of the US vs the USSR.
I dunno man, I don't think the Romans or the Sasanids had the equivalent of nuclear weapons that would destroy both countries quite easily.

>same thing really
Are you fucking retarded

>the Romans never relaxed
They relaxed every time they had a civil war.

There were plenty of times the Eastern legions had to be marched off into Greece, or Gaul, or Italy, or some other shitpile to kill it's shitkicking pretender.

>and were capable of matching the Romans in pitched battles with similar numbers as well
No and no

The Parthians tended to lose against Rome if they didn't have a better strategy. They never had the capacity to throw themselves at a Roman legion and expect it to go well for them. They tended to have to isolate and envelop a force, or use some novel unit, or cause a defection, or something other than a full frontal attack against a numerically similar force.

Secondly in the numbers department Rome was pretty much unrivaled in its capacity not to simply field large armies but to lose them and replace them with equally skilled and equipped armies. Parthia on the other hand had a more traditional system of levies for the bulk of its forces and it could not sustain casualties as well as Rome could hence it often suing for peace after a bad military episode.

And changing its military structure, power base, organization....but you know same thing right?

it was literally in ctesiphon because mesopotamia was the economic and cultural heart of the sassanid empire of that time. the iranian plateau was a backwater in comparison

>sassanid empire
We're talking about Parthia sweety.

Would you like to talk about the Achaemenid empire as well?

sulla kills himself*

Sulla saved the republic from Marius

take power away from the Senate and empower the plebeian assemblies, tribunes and other offices to spread around power and make the ambitious jerkasses less dangerous.

though in truth, Rome needed a more effective, immediate rule like what emperors provided, so maybe officialize and actually regulate the position of lifelong dictator or "princeps" would have been a good thing, Augustus really only failed to foresee a proper succession system, so what i would do is make the Senate continue it's legislative functions, and i would install a system in which emperors need to be certain age and have to have served the cursus honorum, guaranteed they would be liked or familiar by the military and the senate, and also elected by the public assemblies.

>pointlessly similar entity.
no.

And Egypt was Romes breadbasket, Greece its artistic inspiration and Syria and Anatolia its piggy bank. Romes heartland is still in Italy where Rome was and Parthia's heartland is in fucking Parthia.

>And changing its military structure, power base, organization

just like Rome did a few times

ummm honey he mentioned khosrow and khosrows were sassanian kings, ok?

This is what Polybius states. When Rome defeated Carthage, they became the masters of the World [Mediterranean]. Since then, the republic steamrolled over all weaker powers with little dismay. Also Polybius states, that the Republic operated at its best during the Punic wars. After that, wealth corrupted the Romans.

>The Cimbri and Teutones were arguably the last existential threat to the Romans
This, Marius really saved their ass.

>mfw sullafags

Sulla literally dindu nuthin, Marius was a fucking lunatic

It was incredibly epic and extended to all of Southern Europe and North Africa, I wonder why no good movie has been made about it yet

Because it lasted almost 20 years. It would make much more sense as a HBO-styled miniseries. It would probably be a good parallel life story between Hannibal and Scipio

Cato was more inline with Sulla than Marius

Yes good idea actually

HBO doing a Rome follow up would be nice :)

He still hated Sulla

Romans sacked Susa as well and turned Parthia into a client kingdom under Trajan.

I think he meant more psychological aspects than physical.

>wanting to save a corrupt, self-serving system of government

I might remember my history of rome wrong, but at the same time , weren't rome fighting in greece? Was the punic war really carthage vs rome at 100%?

>It does them an equal enemy since Romans were in no way capable
*in a position where it was prudent.
If rome was backed into a corner and outright attacked by parthia, not only would they crush them, but they could have done it five times over. Parthia was a torn in romes side, but because rome had its fingers in a lot of client states, not because they were equal. Also crassus was stupid

No, the only differences between the Parthian Arsacid dynasty and Sassanian Persian dynasty were the reigning dynasty itself. Both the Parthians and Persians operated the exactly same way, its one continuous Iranian empire. In fact the Sassanians were just more centralized, aggressive, and militarily greater than the Arsacids, they still used the seven great Parthian Houses and so on.

>Parthian into a client kingdom
For literally less than a year. Which is an eyeblink in the entire Roman-Byzantine vs Parthian-Persian Wars.

It primarily fell, I think, for two reasons.

1:The wealth and power of the empire ran roughshod over and mangled a political system designed to run a much smaller amount of territory. The wealth pouring in from the provinces made bribery, buying the support of the lower classes with public works and games, and various other massive expenses not just possible, but necessary. The Roman Republic always ran off the individualistic competitiveness of the aristocracy, but this rapid inflation of the cost of any given political career made the laws suggestions, inconvenient obstacles to the real heart and soul of the city: money and crude popularity. This subversion of the law inevitably weakened it, and when law stops having power in and off itself, when people withdraw the power they collectively place in it, society falls back on martial force as its core political tool. This is what happened.

So point one, you need to somehow keep the wealth of the provinces largely out of private hands or at least out of politics. Good luck.

2: The distance at which wars were fought, and their scales, had long been necessitating greater autonomy for the generals fighting them. The length of these wars also increased the personal power of these generals, as they could functionally be something like a king of their province for many years if a significant war was on. The length of these wars, and the supremacy of the general, all so far from Rome, lent to a build-up of loyalty between the general and his army. This was greatly furthered by the fact that the general was meant to look out for his men after his governership/the war; give them land to retire on, make sure they were sorted out. This meant that these men, often of humble background(particularly after the Marian Reforms) had a personal interest in their general remaining wealthy, powerful, and smoothly returning to Italy and to public life, so that he can arrange their settlement. If push came to shove, their general being able to pay their wages and settle them was far more important to them than the Republic.

This ties into point one. When the law broke down, when softer forms of civic decision making broke down due to the hyper-inflating cost of a public career and role of wealth and buying popularity in Rome, when it all came down to who had the bigger stick, it wasn't the Republic. It was the generals. It was the men who the legions were devoted to, who the legions had a vested interest in supporting. When the institutions of the Republic broke down, the force that replaced them was controlled by individuals. This is what happened with Caesar, and much as they styled themselves as 'Defenders of the Republic', his enemies were called 'Pompeians' for a reason. They were just piggy backing off another single man with the loyalty of legions.

So for point two, you somehow need to radically reform how provincial and emergency commands worked without compromising the efficiency of the general in the field. Good luck.

that time they fought the Seleucids

All armies tend to lose if they have a worse strategy. You seem really, really retarded.

The first war the Parthians ACTUALLY instigated against the Romans after Crassus' failed expedition as well as Antony getting his shit-kicked out of their lands had the Parthian prince and his Roman traitor butt-buddy take almost all of the Rome's territories in Western Asia in the Levant and most of Anatolia till Antony's subordinate was finally able to stop it. Parthians were not weak.
Imagine if Netflix did a high budget series focusing on the Roman/Byzantines vs Parthians/Persians. Shit would be GOAT.

No, see it rather as a small middle eastern country. Someone that usa could instantly crush if they were pushed, but never someone worth the resources. Ten parthian empires combined could not beat rome, but even a tenth of parthia could be a nuance if at the right place and time

>Ten parthian empires combined could not beat rome
lol